Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  They reached the side of the hole and Zyn’dri looked down to see that it was filled with a pasty yellow mud that bubbled lazily.

  She grabbed Walt’s hand and pointed. “See! There’s one!”

  When she glanced up, Walt was peering at the mud, and she could see he was puzzled.

  “You don’t see it?” She asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Look. It’s like this,” Zyn’dri knelt down and began to trace a pattern in the dry dirt at the edge of the cauldron.

  Walt opened his mouth to tell her not to disturb the natural crust, but just then a deep rumbling shook the earth below them.

  A split formed in the ground in the shape of the design, exactly as she had traced it. She stepped back as the edges of it crumbled and fell into the cauldron.

  Something had begun. The mud in the cauldron began to bubble, then to churn. Steam rose from somewhere deep within the Earth.

  “Stand back!” Walt called, laying a hand on Zyn’dri’s shoulder. As they stepped away, Zyn’dri caught sight of the same pattern she had just finished drawing. It was churning in the mud, swirling and arcing.

  “There!” Zyn’dri pointed. “See the pattern?”

  Walt looked mystified. I do, now that you point it out to me.” He pulled Zyn’dri back several more paces, just as water, mud, and steam began an intricate dance in the cauldron. It looked, to Zyn’dri, like a pot of soup. She said so.

  It took Walt a moment to answer. He was staring intently at the jumping water. When he did, his voice sounded distracted.

  “Right. That’s what a cauldron is. It’s a big pot, just like you’d make soup in. Only sometimes it’s something more magical than soup. Like a potion or—or—” he trailed off. “Do you see that? In the steam?”

  Zyn’dri looked. She did see it. The same pattern rose above the cauldron.

  Walt’s voice was full of wonder. “I’ve lived here nearly my whole life. How have I never seen this before?”

  41

  No one had to tell Sol that this was his induction. He knew as soon as they led him into the room.

  They were all out of their armor, dressed in day uniforms. Sol instantly wished that he had his armor back. The festive atmosphere was gone. His friends stood solemn and quiet in two long lines on either side of the room. Juice wouldn’t look at him.

  Between the rows of soldiers, a long beam ran down the center of the room, about four feet off the floor.

  Sol’s stomach tightened. He waited as a commander—Juice’s father—walked along it, down the center of the long rows of Milguard soldiers, to face him. Sol saw Briian and Tavish and Mezina. Uncle Carl was conspicuously absent.

  “Solomon Brooks,” Juice’s father spoke his name with a hint of contempt. Sol knew he still harbored resentment because they had given Juice a place to go. “You want to join the Liberty Milguard?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sol said, trying to disconnect his feelings for the man from his obligation to obey his orders.

  “You think you can handle this induction?” Commander Hastings growled.

  Sol didn’t know what to say. He figured it would be a physical test of some kind. The only thing that made sense was that he would have to cross the long beam to the other side. And he’d had plenty of experience with heights and balance.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. He tried to ignore the uneasy feeling he got when he glanced at the soldiers on either side of the beam. They radiated a grim anticipation that Sol had only seen in wolves on the ranch when they were gathered around a kill.

  “Then you’ll need to get from one end of this beam to the other,” Hastings said. “The distance is fifty feet. If you quit before you make it to that end, you will not be a member of this fighting force.”

  Juice’s dad strode to the platform at the end of the beam. He pulled himself up onto it and walked a step or two back on the beam before gesturing to Sol to climb the platform. Sol mounted it quickly and stood to face the older man.

  From here, the beam looked longer. It was just wide enough for a single boot. Hastings stood easily on it, comfortably, with his knees bent and one foot in front of the other. He gestured to Sol and Sol took a tentative step onto the beam.

  Sol saw the cruel light in the man’s eyes and was half-expecting the blow that landed on his jaw. He staggered backward onto the platform as Juice’s dad advanced. This time, Sol was ready. Using the more secure footing of the platform to widen his stance, he ducked the next punch and threw a shoulder to the man’s lower ribcage. Hastings went off onto the floor below, and Sol scrambled along the beam as the man fell.

  He was expecting Juice’s dad to come back at him, but he wasn’t expecting the rows of soldiers to suddenly, savagely, join in.

  They clawed at him, jabbed at him, leaped onto the beam and struck at him. Sol was overpowered by the smell of their starched uniforms and his own blood.

  Sol felt a massive fist and a sharp pain across the back of his neck. Instinctively, he spun and swung, barely catching the beam with both feet, his fist connecting with the soft gut of an older guy who sucked air and staggered backward. The man fell off the beam.

  A jolt coursed through Sol, and he realized that someone was firing a convulsion gun at him. Looking to his left, he saw Briian standing less than three feet away, pointing the muzzle of his gun at Sol’s chest.

  Sol didn’t hesitate. He bent his knees and reached a hand down to the beam. When he had three points of contact, he kicked out. His boot skimmed the top of the gun before connecting solidly with Briian’s throat.

  Sol heard the pop and Briian’s strangled cry, but two other soldiers were on the beam, and he had stopped thinking. Sol lashed out at the pain covering his torso and shoulders and face. The beam was a disadvantage to him, but it was to them, too. The soldiers on the ground grabbed at him, and as he began to lose his balance he saw how tightly packed they were, like fish squirming and writhing to get closer to the beam, to him. He aimed carefully and caught himself by planting a boot on the shoulder of the nearest soldier. He rocked back to the beam and struck, then stepped forward, onto another soldier, and repeated the process.

  They were infuriated. He heard them roaring, felt them snatching at his boot every time he stepped off the beam and leveraged against another one of them.

  It was like fighting on uneven ground, but better than the single track of the beam. Sol made progress fast, using his arms, shoulders, and hips to knock the soldiers off the beam in front of him and using the troops on the ground to give him more leverage.

  When he shoved the last soldier off the end platform, Sol turned to shoot a triumphant gaze back across the crazed crowd. But they didn’t stop. Sol saw Kade climb onto the beam and run toward him, plowing into Sol with a force that knocked the breath out of him. Sol fell backward off the platform and landed hard.

  He scrambled to his feet, but they were all upon him. Even guys Sol had known for years had suddenly turned on him. Mezina was there, her long hair tied back, her fists striking him wherever they could reach. He tried to block, tried to dodge, but there were twenty or more of them, and they drove him to his knees, and then to the ground. Sol saw Juice standing against the far wall, his back to the room, lifting a heavy weight over his head. He choked out his friend’s name. He thought about Juice throwing up during his induction, and knew he was about to do the same thing. But Sol’s bad shoulder popped under the weight of a boot, and searing pain washed the nausea away. He saw Kade standing above him. Kade’s boot was on Sol’s back, and Kade’s buddies laughed.

  “All right!” A loud voice cut above the crowd. It was Commander Hastings. At a signal Sol couldn’t see, the soldiers dropped back into line. He lay there, bleeding, and wondered if he should get up. When Juice’s father barked at him to do so, he pulled himself to his feet.

  He felt sticky blood running down from his hairline, and he wiped it away before it ran into his eyes. His body ached, and a sharp pain radiated from his knee. But he h
ad done it. He had crossed the bridge into the Milguard.

  “Well, you made it. Though you stepped on your fellow soldiers to do it. And you think this was too rough. I see it in your eyes. But you know, don’t you, that this is nothing—nothing—compared to what the Cascadians and the Harvesters will give you.” Hastings growled. “You remember this beating, and when you see a fellow Milguard soldier down, you’ll help him, because you remember what this felt like.”

  Sol’s breath was coming in racking sobs. He heard it bouncing around the room. Not likely, he thought. I’ll remember that it was them who did it to me.

  Juice’s dad walked around him slowly. The small man slid his own convulsion gun off and shoved it into Sol’s hands. “Here.” He said. “Go ahead and get your revenge. On any of them. They’re not wearing armor, and that that thing’s turned up to 10. Kill ‘em.”

  Sol knew it was a trap. He was aware that they were baiting him, but he turned and rushed at Kade anyway, throwing the butt of the gun into his temple as the kid threw his arms up to protect himself. It was too late. Sol hit him full on. Just once, hard enough to drop him.

  It didn’t feel as satisfying as Sol had hoped it would feel to see Kade lying on the floor. He turned back to Hastings. Having his back to the man made him nervous.

  “You might make an okay soldier after all,” Juice’s father said. His praise made Sol feel sick.

  “What do you think, Milguard 8?” The commander called out. “Is he Milguard material?”

  There was a chorus of cheers.

  “You’re in.”

  Sol’s head was throbbing. He shot a look at Juice. His friend was still against the wall. Juice stood trembling under the weight in the corner, and Sol realized that was his friend’s punishment for not participating.

  Commander Hastings gestured him through an open door to the left. Sol limped through it, finding his left knee was sore and beginning to swell.

  The corridor was dim, and Sol felt jittery as Juice’s father followed him along it. Near the end, the man grunted, “There.” And Sol stopped beside a nondescript door.

  “I’ve got a little task for the newest member of the Milguard,” Juice’s dad said, laying his hand on the doorknob. He looked Sol in the eyes. “And this is a top secret, Sol. Nobody better find out about this, or else.” Sol wondered what that meant, then he thought back to Juice, standing in the corner. This guy wouldn’t mind taking out Sol’s disobedience on his son. Something told Sol that he knew that would hurt worse than anything the man could do to him.

  As the door opened, Sol swung his aching head to see two big Milguard soldiers muscling a smaller guy through the door.

  It took Sol a long moment, staring at the sunken face, squinting through the glare of the caged bulbs in the room, to realize that their prisoner was Sonny Lundgren, the kid who’d crashed in their field over a year ago.

  Sonny was gaunt and broken. His purple-stained fingertips flexed again and again as if clawing the air at his sides. Sol stood, feeling scared and sick. He didn’t want to believe that Liberty had its own Disclosure Squad, the cruel Cascadian interrogators that Sonny had told him about, but there was no denying it.

  “We’re done with this prisoner,” Hastings leaned close to Sol and jerked his head toward Sonny. His voice was a low mumble. “Your first act as a Milguard soldier is to dispatch him.”

  Sol searched his mind for a possible military meaning of “dispatch.” Did that mean to send him somewhere? Juice’s father caught his eye, and Sol realized what he meant.

  “You want me to—”

  “Shut up.” Juice’s father growled, “I told you this was confidential. Take the gun, take the spinner that’s parked outside, and take him to these coordinates.” He pushed a slip of paper into Sol’s palm. It’s right near the border. Set him up facing you, then finish him. Be sure he is headed away from Cascadia, into Liberty.”

  Sol saw why. So that they could pretend he had crossed the border. He tried not to look the kid in the eye.

  “Bring the spinner back here. Leave his body at the border as a warning to his Cascadian friends.” Juice’s father spat at Sonny, and the kid ducked his head further. “Don’t mess this up, kid.” He gave Sol a long look.

  Sol’s heart hammered as he and the kid were ushered out a back door to a waiting spinner. It was coated with matte black stealth paint, and they threw the kid in the passenger’s seat and cuffed him to a rail that Sol hadn’t seen in any of his friends’ spinners.

  One of the big soldiers slid the key to Sol, and they disappeared back into the shadow of the armory.

  Sol lifted off. He wanted away from this place. The kid kept his eyes on his hands. When he spoke, his voice was jagged.

  “They said I’m going home, but I saw that guy talking to you. I’m not going home, am I?”

  Sol considered. He rested his hand on the convulsion gun. He knew how a jolt from this thing felt. He wasn’t sure he could shoot this kid.

  But before he could answer, he thought of Juice. Juice had been his friend since the first day Sol walked into South Edge Elementary School, only weeks after his father had been killed. Juice had stood by him through the teasing, through the schoolyard fistfights, through it all. Sol thought of Juice standing alone under the weight his father had placed on him, like he had all his life. Sol thought of what could happen to Juice if he didn’t do what he’d been told. He’d brought Juice enough pain.

  “I don’t want to do it,” Sol said. “It’s just that I’ve got this friend, and I think something bad will happen to him if I—if I don’t.”

  Sonny started to cry, softly.

  Sol tried not to hear it as he navigated the spinner down into the trees at the coordinates Juice’s father had given him.

  The evening had fallen, and the last of the light was ebbing from the forest. Sol got out and unchained Sonny from the spinner, helping him out without looking the kid in the eye.

  Without warning, Sonny struck out at him, catching him above the left eye with his handcuffs. Sol staggered backward, his injured knee giving slightly as he caught himself, He reached out and grabbed the kid’s flight suit. It was rough under his fingers as he held on.

  Sonny threw all his weight into breaking free, but he was weakened by his long confinement and he fell to one knee, then dropped to all fours and clawed at the slick mat of pine needles that covered the forest floor, trying to crawl away.

  He was no match for Sol. Sol slid his arms around the kid’s chest and hauled him to his feet. Sol could feel the night air where it stung his fresh cut, and he clenched his hand into a fist to throw a punch in return. He spun the kid around.

  The shadows of evening had gathered under Sonny’s eyes. His shoulders slumped, and his hands hung loosely in the handcuffs in front of him. He turned his face slightly, leaving his jaw open for a punch. Sol saw that he had given up.

  Sol knew that feeling. He knew the moment when all hope was gone. Unbidden, an image of the Ranger, Walt, who had saved him in the courtroom came into his mind. He stepped back from Sonny, letting his fist relax.

  Sonny didn’t run. He didn’t even look up. This was the moment, Sol realized. This was the moment he should shoot. The Cascadian kid had his back to the border. He was perfectly still. Sol could place the shot wherever he wanted.

  But Sol knew too much. He knew imprisonment. He knew injustice. He knew the dark bitterness that came from both.

  Sol stepped forward, fumbling with the keys. Sonny glanced up as he approached. There was a tight, puzzled expression on his face. It stayed there as Sol unshackled him and backed away.

  “Can’t stand to shoot me when I’m chained up like an animal?” Sonny said. “It will look better if you kill me when I’m free?”

  Sol breathed in a deep draft of the cool mountain air. “I’m not going to shoot you, Sonny.”

  For the first time, the kid looked up. Tentatively. “What about your friend?”

  Juice’s face flashed in front of S
ol briefly. “I don’t know.” He said.

  Sonny stood still, rubbing first one wrist and then the other. He didn’t say anything.

  “Go home, Sonny. The border is five hundred yards behind you.”

  “You’re not going to shoot me when I try?” Sonny said his voice wavering.

  Sol shook his head in the fading light. “Just go home.”

  Sonny turned then and looked at the dense forest behind him. He looked back at Sol, who laid his gun on the ground and held his hands up in front of his chest. “I’m not like them,” he said, and he heard the words himself and knew they were true.

  Sonny took a few steps toward the woods, then glanced back over his shoulder. He moved like a scared animal: sideways, slumping, his hands half-raised. Sol watched him as he ran into the thick trees. It took a long time.

  Sol spoke, finally, and his words chased the last of the light out of the woods. “Sonny, I’m sorry.”

  42

  After nearly forty years, the park was new to Walt again. He and Zyn’dri spent almost every evening poring over the field journals of this geologist, Laska, who she said had saved her. The patterns were everywhere. He and Zyn’dri watched for them throughout the spring as they monitored the thermal features, counted wolf pups, and recorded the locations of mountain bluebird nests.

  When summer brought bison calves and cygnets, Sylvia was full of health again. She worked every day at the villages and was out of bed before Walt every morning.

  When Walt’s shift took him to find elk calves on a three-day hike into the backcountry, Sylvia insisted that she'd be all right by herself and that Walt should take Zyn’dri along with him.

  They traveled the elk trails and slept in the meadows under stars so bright that Walt stayed up most of their last night watching them as they moved across the sky. In their brilliance, too, he saw the patterns. He had to know more about these designs. Walt resolved to talk to Meir as soon as they returned from the hike.